Every $1 of Reading’s $91.2M tax levy

The FY26 levy is $91,158,891 on $8.28 billion of taxable property. After the 1.14 shift, homes still carry 93¢ of every dollar.

Without any split, a single rate would be about $11.02. The split moves roughly $1.1M of the levy from homes to businesses — about 1.2% of it.

Move the shift yourself

Massachusetts lets the Select Board shift up to 1.50× of the tax burden onto commercial property. Drag the slider — or grab the see-saw itself — and watch what actually happens.

Why the median? Commercial figures use the median commercial property ($887,750), not the average ($2,025,600) — Reading’s 7 properties worth $10M+ drag the “average” up to more than double what a typical business is actually worth, so the median is the honest yardstick. Computed from the certified FY26 levy ($91,158,891), total value ($8,275,536,877), the 6.13% CIP value share and the $416,096 senior circuit-breaker shift — the same math as the assessors’ tables (est. rates; the voted 1.14 certified at $10.96/$12.55).

Commercial share of the tax base — Reading vs. everyone (FY25)

This is the whole story. Woburn and Burlington can hand businesses a fat tax bill because businesses ARE a third of their base. Reading’s is 6.3¢ on the dollar — there just isn’t much there to shift onto.

Hover any town for its rates and average bill. Big-CIP towns pair LOW home rates with HIGH commercial rates: Woburn taxes homes at $8.54 (avg bill $5,981) and business at $20.41. Reading cannot replicate that arithmetic — 1.50× nearly-nothing is still nearly nothing.

All 191 commercial properties, by value

Reading’s commercial tax base isn’t office parks — it’s mostly small buildings. Only seven properties in town are worth more than $10M.

Average commercial property: $2,025,600 · median just $887,750 — the median commercial building is worth less than the average house ($944,193).

Residential rate vs. average single-family bill

The tax rate has fallen five straight years — from $13.33 to $10.96. Bills still rose, because home values rose faster. The rate is arithmetic; the levy is the law.

Average single-family tax bill, FY25 peers

Among largely-residential comparable towns, Reading had the third-lowest average bill. The towns below us? Mostly the ones with commercial bases to lean on.

Belmont ($18,775), Concord ($19,585), Lexington ($19,306) and Winchester ($17,695) are what a residential town with pricier homes pays. Woburn ($5,981) is what a giant commercial base buys you.

Estimate an FY26 bill

Enter any assessed value (your assessment is on your tax bill, or look it up on the town’s assessor database).

FY26 residential rate $10.96 per $1,000 of assessed value. The “single rate” column shows what the same house would pay with no commercial shift ($11.07 incl. the senior credit shift).

Eight things worth knowing

Any tax question, answered from this data

Recap AI has the voted FY26 rates, the five-year history, the peer comparisons and the assessors’ classification data — plus every meeting document on the site.